As an adult, you will likely have some horrible things happen to you. Friends and family die, divorces and breakups happen, you lose jobs, etc. The more years you spend on this planet, the more people and things you tend to surround yourself with. The stakes are higher and loss is inevitable. I’ve been through my share. I have tried to dull the pain and emptiness the best I knew how. I had drank my entire adult life, so predictably I drank when my life fell apart.
Oh how I wish that someone would have leveled with me hard at that point. I wish someone would have explained to me the uselessness of trying to shut out the pain with booze. I don’t know if I would have listened, but that little voice in the back of my head would have been nice. My drinking was far worse and insidious than I had consciously suspected. Would my husband have left me for another woman had we have talked about my drinking? Would he have stayed with me if I would have quit? All questions I will never know the answers to and frankly, its useless to even ponder. Now, I look back and all I see was someone who betrayed me at my worst and left me without a second thought. I spent the next 2 years wondering what was so wrong with me that I could be so easily discarded after 13 years of marriage. I was so fucking pissed off, betrayed, and beyond hurt. I couldn’t believe that her bras were drying in my bathroom as I moved out the last of my things. I couldn’t believe the quickness in which I was forgotten and put away like I never even mattered. I still cant think about that part of my past without getting angry….no, livid.
All my life, I’ve felt like being angry was not a healthy emotion–it should be repressed until it goes away. Nice Southern girls dont get angry. Except I was. I was so fucking angry that I tried to drink myself to death. I tried to suppress rage with gin. At first, it seemed to work. Single for the first time since I was 19 and no one can tell me when to come home. I can drink as much as I want and no one will bitch about it. Except I was all alone now. Going home alone slayed me. The emptiness inside me seemed like a black hole. I barely even unpacked or bought furniture for my new apartment. I felt homeless even though I had a place to sleep. Friends fell by the wayside and I fell further down. But outwardly, it was fine. I still had a job and even though I was over-drafting my account monthly, I had some money. I barely slept. I ran on anxiety, cigarettes, and booze. Whatever weight I had lost with the initial shock of divorce crept back. I hated myself.
This carried on for two fucking years. Two years. Last fall, I changed doctors and they insisted on a blood panel. Numbers came back and surprise(!) my liver function was poor. Extremely high AST levels. I was freaked out. I quit drinking for a week or so and re-took the test. Numbers were more in the normal range, but that scare got me to thinking. I started to wonder why I even drank anymore. I always did it alone, it had long ago ceased to be any fun at all. Maybe I could experiment with a week or two of sobriety. The thought of quitting booze forever astounded me. No fucking way could I ever give up that outlet. However, as of this November I will have been sober more than half of this year. I didn’t drink all summer long. I’m completely convinced that I am an alcoholic and my life is worlds better without drinking. I’ve had my fair share of relapses but I always get back up and try again because I never, ever want to fall so hard again. You don’t realize how deep that hole is till you start to drag yourself out and look back down.
Those years were a blurry mess. In fact, the last 5 or so years were. I desperately wish that my life was worked out, but I’m starting to see that the good things don’t come easily. When I say good things, I mean stable relationships, financial security, self esteem, and peace. I got trapped into this instant cycle of gratification via drinking. I trashed my life and wondered why I had none of these things. I still get angry sometimes, but now I’m more tame. I’ve had to set aside that heavy burden of hate and learn to love myself in turn.
I’ve begun to re-enter the world with a fair amount of trepidation. My social life is extremely limited and I have very few actual friends I see on a regular basis. These things used to really bother me. I used to measure my value in external things….friends, nice house, car, good job, college degree, husband, etc. Well, fuck that. I know exactly what will make me happy and fill my soul with peace these days and it aint dependent on any of those factors and certainly not a drink. My happiness comes from within. Same goes for my peace. The longer I travel in this journey, the less I care what others think of me. I’m crippled with credit card and student debt and likely wont be able to afford a place of my own for a long time. If I had the energy or inclination, I’d hate what I did to myself two years ago. Instead, I’ll just use it as motivation to never get that low again. I can use my pain to relate to others in similar situations. My heart has grown five or six times its normal size since all of this.
I’d never take any of this back. Because somehow in that last decade, I forgot who I was. This woke me up and taught me to stop wasting my fucking time. Never again will I waste away in a relationship where my needs aren’t being met for fear of being alone. I was a coward that took a coward’s way out. The next tragedy will be met head on because now I know what not to do.
Sober in the sticks 